Longwood University Athletics

By CHRIS COOK
LongwoodLancers.com

This time three years ago, Longwood's women's soccer team was watching the Big South Championship at home on a computer screen.
 
This Sunday at 2 p.m., the Lancers will be the ones putting on a show.
 
When third-seeded Longwood (13-4-3) takes the field against top-seeded High Point (12-7-1) in the Big South Championship game this afternoon at Bryan Park on ESPN3, it will signal a comeback that been four years in the making. During that time, Longwood has climbed from the depths of the Big South standings to reach the conference's championship game for the first time in history, earning that right in 2017 by upsetting No. 2 seed Liberty 2-0 in Friday's semifinal game at Bryan Park.
 
It has been a historic climb for a Longwood team that has reached a new rung on the postseason ladder every year since 2014. Now there's one more within their grasp: their first Big South Championship.
 
"We made history just getting here," said senior captain and All-Big South midfielder Janese Quick. "That was our first goal; our next is to focus on Sunday and take it one step further by bringing home a trophy."
 
The berth to Sunday's championship game is no more gratifying for any Lancer than it is for Quick and her fellow seniors Teresa Fruchterman, Maria Kirby and Jenna Tomayko. Those four began their Longwood careers in uncharacteristic fashion, failing to make the Big South Championship tournament for the first time – and only time – in program history in 2014.
 
Those four were mere freshman reserves on that 2014 team, but the sting of that disappointing finish sticks with them to this day. It's what gives Friday's semifinal win against the rival Flames a bit more satisfaction, and it's what makes Sunday's championship berth all the more significant.
 
It's also the spark that lit the fire that, three years later, has propelled the red-hot Lancers to their first Big South Championship game appearance on the strength of a 10-game unbeaten streak.
 
"Each year we've gotten better, we've grown as a team and I think we've learned from the losses," said Kirby, who enters the championship game as Longwood's all-time Division I record-holder in nearly every goalkeeping category. "Definitely as a class, we've learned how to handle everything. Now that we're seniors, we've progressed every year and we have a chance to win a championship."
 
For those four remaining Lancers who endured Longwood's premature ending in 2014, they have used each year's postseason disappointment as kindling to ignite the fire for the next season. The Lancers advanced back to the quarterfinals in 2015, to the semifinals in 2016 and this year took it a step further by reaching the Sunday's championship showdown.
 
But it's the season-ending losses in each of those years that have ignited Longwood's fire over the past four seasons, each one fanning that blaze brighter and brighter. Now as Longwood enters championship Sunday, they do so riding an inferno fueled by three years' worth of yet-unfulfilled championship aspirations.
 
"The last day of one season is the first day of the next," said 2017 Big South Coach of the Year Todd Dyer. "If you didn't make the tournament, what motivates you to make it? If you got in but didn't go as far as you should have, what motivates you to take it a step further? Especially last year, going out in overtime against High Point, we wanted to get back and we wanted to take that next step."
 
Nobody has fanned those flames as much as Longwood's four seniors, who have taken the Lancers from 2014's ninth-place disappointment to back-to-back sixth-place performances in 2015 and 2016 and, finally, to this year's third-place finish and championship berth. The fire of that class burns the brightest, and it has spread to even the newcomers on Longwood's roster.
 
"I was talking to Teresa about it, and we noticed how the freshmen coming in were so invested in the process," said Tomayko. "Being a senior, you look at things differently knowing this could be your last game ever, but they're taking the same approach as freshmen. They have a lot more soccer to play, but they still appreciate how valuable this position is, to be playing for a championship."
 
Playing for a championship is a new position for all 30 players on Longwood's roster, contrary to their foe on Sunday. High Point, the Big South Regular Season Co-Champion, is no stranger to title bouts, having played in two of the past three Big South Championships while winning it all in 2014.
 
However, the Lancers know what it's like to go home without a championship, and it's that ever-growing desire to hoist a trophy that has driven them to become the team they are today.
 
"It builds each season," Kirby said. "It's hard losing the seniors, and you have to rebuild from that. But for the classes that return, we all use past seasons to build on. The spring is really big for us, and ending it like we did last year, you could tell we took something extra from that, just like we did the year before and the year before that."
 
Now Kirby and her classmates are nearing the end of a four-year journey that began with heartbreak and has already made history. And whether Longwood leaves Sunday with a trophy or not, the progress the program has made over the past four years won't be easily undone.
 
Either way, it's more fuel to the fire.
 

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